Front Utah 2016

This was my first time speaking at Front, and it was a wonderful event. It was a medium-sized, single-track conference with wonderful speakers (I especially loved Cap Watkins and Keenan Cummings talks). The organizers had everything well organized, yet they maintained a very relaxed atmosphere. There were mixers after the talks, but they didn’t go too late, leaving it up to the attendees to find their own food and entertainment for the evening (or to even get some decent rest).

This was also the first event I’ve attended where they made great use of a conference Slack. There were channels for each talk, as well as channels for job postings, and coordinating after-conference activities. There’s even a bit of activity still in the Slack a couple weeks after the event.

As an added bonus, Andrew Branch, one of the conference organizers, offered to take headshots for the attendees, and I am quite pleased with how mine turned out.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself and look forward to next year’s event.

My Talk

Sometimes, as creative professionals, our work is not our best. Sometimes we make things of which we aren’t proud. It might be because of undue pressure on us from our clients/employer, constraints that take us out of our wheelhouse, or more often because we get in our own heads. In my talk at Front, I addressed what might be holding us back and strategies for working through it.